Christmas in prison | David Dorson

By David Dorson ·

Law360 Canada (December 21, 2023, 11:06 AM EST) -- This column is drawn from a letter I wrote to my family during the Christmas holidays, a couple of months after I arrived in minimum security, where prisoners lived in houses and did our own cooking.

Dear All:

I’m starting to write this letter on the morning of Dec. 25, Christmas day. It’s very quiet here today. As you might expect, the holidays are not exactly a time of celebration here, but more a time when most prisoners are highly aware of their separation from those they love — or in some cases of the even more depressing fact that they don’t have any people like that in their lives. 

It seemed to me there was heightened tension and anxiety as the holidays approached as everyone anticipates loneliness. On top of that, many of the regular activities that give meaning to prisoners’ days, or at least that help the days pass more easily, are not available during the holidays. For example the school is closed, so I have no work. However, many work assignments, such as cleaning, caring for disabled prisoners, and providing groceries, continue. (Fortunately, the library, staffed by prisoners, stays open every day.)  

Every house has been given a turkey to make for Christmas (paid for from funds that prisoners have deducted automatically from our pay every two weeks). In my house there has been a great deal of discussion and preparation for the last couple of days around this meal. Yesterday people were busy making pies, stuffing and various side dishes. We’re going to have our big turkey meal around lunchtime today but we’ve also made a beef roast and so many side dishes that it should feed us all for a few days. 

Also, an awful lot of baking has been going on all around the jail. My friend K has singlehandedly baked enough for 20 or 30 people — butter tarts, cookies, fudge, shortbread, cupcakes and he’s not the only one. Actually, there is a lot of home baking here all the time, including the muffins and cookies I make. One of the guys who’s in the class where I tutor often brings cookies, and the guy who “runs” the meeting room where I play cards every evening also often brings in baked goods to share. This is one way in which prisoners can be kind to each other.

An interesting feature of Christmas here is that I’ve heard virtually no Christmas music. Of course, the TV and radio are full of it, but it’s easy enough not to put these on. The normal feeling I have at this time of year of having heard 200 versions too many of “The Little Drummer Boy” (or whatever other song) just hasn’t happened. 

There are also very few decorations or physical signs of Christmas. There is a decorated tree outside the chapel and another in the visitor centre, but I rarely go to either of those places. Naturally there are no holiday parties, no signs, no flyers for sales, no stores or any of the other commercialism so ubiquitous elsewhere. No Christmas trees or presents in the houses where we live. So the holiday is much less “present” here than on the outside.

In typical prison fashion, the holiday season has been made more difficult because of two screw-ups. First, the grocery store is still having big problems with its new computer system. This means that none of us knew this week just how much money we had available to spend on food just at a time when food is especially important.

As background, each house gets a weekly credit at the grocery store for each prisoner in the house. The amount is enough to eat on if you are careful and don’t have a huge appetite; guys who are really into working out have to supplement this with food they buy from the canteen. The grocery store only tracks the house total, because the official line is that houses buy and eat food collectively. In fact, no house does that because people’s tastes, appetites and schedules are much too variable. 

Instead, the shopper in each house — an official job — does all the food buying from the lists each person gives him, and tracks how much money each individual has spent, including any carryover or deficit from week to week. When the grocery store, as happens regularly, fails to provide receipts at all, or provides receipts full of errors, or when some goods no longer have prices on them, it’s very difficult to keep track of who has spent what. The shoppers and others have spent hours this week trying to figure out what the real situation is. 

Many guys spend their full allotment every week, so this is quite stressful. It’s not a problem for me because I eat less so have a significant surplus in my grocery account. Of course, the prison is doing nothing to alleviate the situation.

Then there was another mess with the phones. Dec. 18 was the day when new money was put into everyone’s phone accounts to cover the next four weeks. (You can only add money to your phone account by submitting a form on one specific date every four weeks; if you miss that day you’re out of luck and can’t make any calls for a month.) This time, more than 20 guys did not get the money they requested, so found they could not make phone calls over the holidays! Fortunately, I was not one of them. 

As I’ve heard the story, the jail has admitted that this was their error but they say they can’t correct it. They are allowing each affected prisoner to make one 15-minute call today — which will be charged at $1 per minute, much higher rates than normal! Some parole officers have allowed prisoners to make additional calls from the phones in their offices, but I don’t know how widespread that has been. So we have guys who are not going to be able to talk to their families until mid-January — probably the worst time of the year to have that go wrong. 

I expect that the prisoners involved will file a grievance over it, but that will take months to resolve, if it ever gets resolved, and doesn’t help them now. It was another reminder of how vulnerable we are to whatever the jail decides to do — and that when the prison makes a mistake, the prisoners pay for it. Sadly, that is all too common in so many areas.

Wishing you all a great holiday.

David Dorson is the pen name of someone who went through arrest, case disposition, imprisonment and parole in Ontario a few years ago. Law360 Canada has granted anonymity because he offers a unique perspective on a subject that matters deeply to many readers, and revealing the author’s identity would make re-establishment in the community after serving his sentence much more difficult than it already is.

The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the author’s firm, its clients, Law360 Canada, LexisNexis Canada, or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.

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